Hear ye, hear ye! Ben here with Part 1 of a Free Speech Double Feature, the second part of which I believe Justin will post tomorrow night. The People Vs. Larry Flynt tells not just the general life and times of porn kingpin Larry Flynt, but specifically the very focused, driven story of Flynt’s battle against censorship, which eventually led him all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Along the way, we witness how Flynt’s nuddie-mag creeper lifestyle keeps him from being the most appropriate candidate for supreme court oration, and more poignantly how those ideals put his hedonism and his life itself in jeopardy. The sleaze negates the highfalutinness of the philanthropic battle for justice, but the highminded defense of liberty also negates the sleaze. These two components are constantly at war with each other in The People Vs. Larry Flynt, and they each keep the other from slipping into lame genre stereotypes. By not falling into the trappings of these battling Oscar-bait genres – biopic of a difficult, complicated person and altruistic morality play – The People Vs. Larry Flynt manages to be better than it has any right to be.
This is not a movie about ‘persevering against great odds and triumphing against adversity.’ Certainly Larry Flynt does just that, but director Milos Foreman is not a spin doctor. He doesn’t care if you like Flynt or not. He doesn’t want to make your heart grow 5 sizes too large. Flynt ends up paralyzed from the waist down in an assassination attempt after his first few bouts in local courts. When Flynt continues his public assault on censorship, however, it seems to be more out of sheer stubbornness than any profound belief. You will be proud to be an American after watching this movie, but begrudgingly. The Hustler Magazine founder is depicted as a total sleazeball, but a stubborn as hell sleazeball who won’t back down in the face of intense pressure from the moral Right. The movie excels by refusing to conflate the defense of Flynt’s right to publish his porno mags with a defense of the man himself. Okay, what Flynt was publishing 30 years ago is a little tame by today’s standards, which probably helps his case with a contemporary audience. But it doesn’t have to. You don’t have to approve of porn to get something out of this movie. Flynt himself is presented as a Rorschach inkblot, but I’ll be damned if you come out of this movie dissatisfied with his triumph.
On the other hand, the movie doesn’t explicitly disapprove of Flynt, either. This has a lot to do with the actors involved. The movie rests on Woody Harrelson’s shoulders, but he makes that Herculean feat look easy. He is in virtually every scene in the movie, and is never once any less than utterly captivating. We know Harrelson can act, though. Courtney Love, as stripper-come-porn star-come-Ms. Flynn Althea Leasure, is the real revelation. Despite the baggage she brings to any role, despite her generally bizarre and heroin-addled look, despite the caricatured, flamboyant sexuality in her portrayal of Althea, she makes the character sympathetic and even somehow appealing. When she first showed up, I figured the movie was heading for Sid and Nancy or, um, Kurt and Courtney territory. Especially considering Althea’s battle with drug addiction, it would have been all too easy to slip into that indie movie archetype, which just illustrates another way The People Vs. Larry Flynt could have ended up an award-season sham instead of the three-dimensional, challenging movie that it is. Ed Norton also shines in an early role as Flynt’s abused lawyer, Alec Issacman. Issacman is given every reason to really loathe the inconsistent, unpredictable Flynt, who treats him as a friend or a parasite depending on his mood. Watching the relationships between Flynt and the supporting cast unfold enriches all the characters. We wonder how these people can put up with this maniacal smut-peddler, yet through them we see the good in him, I suppose.
Of course, Milos Foreman directs the movie like a champ. It is a lean, mean, censorship fighting machine, with all the fat cut out. What’s more, his very decision to direct this movie speaks volumes. Foreman is better known for the classic One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest and his opus Amadeus. His clout juxtaposed against the Larry Flynt story informs our understanding of the movie. By being who he is – an award-laden Hollywood golden child – and choosing to tackle the material he did here, Foreman sends a message. We are not above this; it effects us all. Oh, and also, I think Foreman’s Mozart and Foreman’s Larry Flint would get along really well. They'd totally be buds.
I am not one to suffer shoddy biopics gladly. I did not hop onboard the Walk the Line express. I didn’t even make it out to Ray. I find that too many biopics feel like a race to cram as many meaningful life events into 2 hours as possible, which usually results in paint-by-numbers life affirming artifice. The People vs. Larry Flynt benefits from the fact that its terminus is not the end of Flynt’s life. He’s still alive and kicking even now, a decade and a half after the movie’s release. Rather, every event in the movie serves one of two purposes. It either works towards Flynt’s date with history at the U.S. Supreme Court, or it illuminates some facet of his relationship with Althea (both the sexy stuff and her battles with drugs and AIDS). What’s more, these threads intertwine, creating deeper meanings through their combination. Milos Foreman reveals Flynt’s great loves, lusts, and passion, of both the carnal and the democratic sorts. Everything in the movie hinges on these elements, and the confluences and contradictions between them. When the movie gets high minded about protecting the first amendment, just when you’re getting all gushy and proud to be an American, the movie reminds you that this dude is a total skeeze. Likewise, it is fascinating to watch this bizarre, larger than life, infantile personality wrestle with something greater than himself, the rights of all free people. How many people who’s MO is being a big perv would sacrifice their freedom, even put their life on the line, for their beliefs the way Larry Flynt does? Watching Larry wrestle between his hedonistic inclinations and his altruistic higher calling makes for some good movie watchin’.
Magic Moment: All Crispin Glover has to do to is just show up on screen and he COMPLETELY FREAKS ME THE FUCK OUT.
-Ben